A tiger grasps the head of a Theravada monk

Date

2015

Description

Creator of the image: Athit Perawongmetha
Date of the image creation: 12 February 2015
Medium: Photograph
Person depicted: A Theravada monk

This photograph was taken at the ‘Tiger Temple’, also known as Wat Pha Luang Ta Bu Yannasampanno, which is located in Kanchanaburi Province, west of Bangkok, in Thailand. Founded in 1994, the forest temple was meant to give sanctuary to wild animals. Across the year of 1999 the monks were given eight Bengal tiger cubs to care for, and have since been breeding and collecting tigers, reaching a peak of 137 in 2016.

The Temple has long been a popular tourist destination, with thousands of people flocking to get their photo taken with the animals as part of their authentic exotic experience. Being photographed with a tiger, or patting one, requires extra fees in addition to the 600 Baht entry. This high-profile tourism earns the Temple an income of around US$2.8 million per year.

The Buddhist monks who run the Temple have long faced accusations of mistreatment, malpractice, selling parts of tigers on the lucrative black market, engaging in illegal for-profit breeding schemes, and animal trafficking. The monks have staunchly denied all such accusation, using their Facebook page to plead their innocence. The Temple had come under increasing scrutiny since three tigers disappeared in 2015 with their microchips being cut out.

Six months after the photo was taken, in May 2016 a government-supported raid was conducted on the Temple, with members of the Department of National Parks, the Thailand Wildlife Conservation Office, and the NGO Wildlife Friends Foundation of Thailand, among others, making up the 1,000 person raiding party. They began moving the tigers off the premises and shutting down the Temple’s tiger keeping operation. They discovered the frozen bodies of 40 tiger cubs, some of which had been dead for more than five years. A representative from the Department of National Parks said to Reuters that the frozen cubs ‘must have some value for the temple … But for what is beyond me.’ Shortly thereafter, another cache of 30 dead tiger cubs was found, and the Temple’s secretary was captured attempting to smuggle out two tiger pelts, 1,000 amulets made from tiger skin, and ten tiger fangs. The dead cubs were pickled in plastic containers with labels in written in English: 'Male Tiger. 3 days old. Weight: 8,00 gm’.

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